


Long Time

by tzikeh



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Gen, challenge:Yuletide 2007, recipient:Lurky McLurklurk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-17 11:43:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzikeh/pseuds/tzikeh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="/users/ionlylurkhere/">Lurky McLurklurk</a> asked for a story set after the final episode, and that sounded pretty good to me, so this story is set after the final episode. Like, one second after the final episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lurky McLurklurk (ionlylurkhere)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionlylurkhere/gifts).



> Everything and anything good about the story is thanks to lydiabell, who has somehow become my de facto Yuletide beta.

Al backed out of the Imaging Chamber and sped past Gushie toward the main Control Room. "We gotta get him out of this leap, Gushie, and I'm talkin' yesterday. This one is bad news. Sam's gone completely looney-tunes. According to him, Ziggy's a coal miner, arthritis is hilarious, you've got a beard, and, oh yeah, God runs a bar in Pennsylvania."

Gushie hurried after him, absently rubbing his chin. "Admiral—"

"I want Verbena here pronto. If we can't get him out, then she's going in with me. He's cracked up. Bananas. Nutty as a—what's the thing that has a whole bunch of nuts in it?"

"Admiral—"

"Fruitcake! Sam's gone straight past Swiss cheese and right into Swiss cuckoo clock. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars, do not leave your body in the Waiting Room—"

Gushie stopped at the door to the Control Room and watched as Al slammed the handlink down on Ziggy's main console, which brought about an indignant squeal of protest. "Admiral!"

Al spun on his heel. "What!"

"Sam leaped again."

"What?! When?"

"Only a few seconds ago, as far as Ziggy can tell. The neural link was holding, though, uh, rather tenuously, while you remained in the Imaging Chamber. When you left, it began to short out, and now...."

"Now? Now what? Where is he?"

"Er."

Al's eyes narrowed. "Gushie...."

Gushie cringed. "Well. Uh. Ziggy, uh, lost him. Erm. Again."

Al looked at Gushie like he had just said that Sam had leaped into a sea urchin who currently lived on Neptune with her husband, Moe. "I took a three-hour tour in the Vomit Comet, and all I got for that was two minutes of a link-up?"

"To be fair to Ziggy, Admiral, you exited the Chamber rather abruptly, and the neural link was shaky at best."

"I don't have to be fair to Ziggy! Ziggy's asleep at the wheel!" Al rubbed at his temples.

"I am performing at maximum capacity, Admiral Calavicci," Ziggy said, a slight tinge of contempt in her voice. "As there is no presence in the Waiting Room to interlock with either your or Doctor Beckett's end of the neural link, I am currently modifying my Waiting Room biofeedback gauges to compensate for sub-optimum conditions. This requires a restructuring of—"

"Can it, you cyber-nozzle, and find Sam! Gushie, don't just stand there doing nothing!"

Gushie shrunk in on himself a bit, but asked, "What would you like me to do, Admiral?"

"Something! Anything! For starters, see if you can find Ziggy's butt and pull that great big stick out of it!" He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

"There is no need to be rude," Ziggy said, her contempt now overt. "We are all concerned for Doctor Beckett. Doctor Gushman cannot work with me at the moment, as the data I am processing is beyond the scope of his abilities. As for your other suggestion, I assure you that, search though he might, he will not discover any elements of human anatomy among my components, whether or not they contain embedded sticks."

Gushie and Al shared a slightly amused glance, Gushie's expression soft and sympathetic. All of the fight left Al then, and he leaned his elbows on the console, head bowed. "You gotta find him, Ziggy. You gotta find him."

"I am doing everything within my power."

Al sighed. "I know you are." Straightening up, he looked back at Gushie. "Did you get Verbena on the phone yet? I want AAAAAAAAH!!" He collapsed to the floor, clutching his head.

Gushie rushed over and knelt beside him, put a hand on his shoulder, and yelled to Ziggy over Al's shouts of pain. "Did something happen to the neural link? Did you find Doctor Beckett?"

"I am receiving extremely irregular readings, Doctor Gushman. The wavelengths from the neural link are unlike any others I have read before. I am attempting to decode them now."

"Ziggy," Al ground out, "what the hell's happening...."

* * *

Sam held Beth's hand and waited with gentle patience as she cried, and when she was wiping the last of her tears away, he crossed the room to carefully lift the tonearm off of the LP, which had long since ended. "Al told me that this is your favorite song."

"It's our song—Al's and mine." She tucked her legs up under her and waited as Sam came back to sit beside her. "I... you know my name, but I don't know yours."

Sam smiled as he sat beside her. "I'm Sam. Sam Beckett."

This time it was Beth who took Sam's hand. "This seems a bit awkward, after—" she gestured vaguely around the room, "but it's nice to meet you, Sam Beckett."

Sam smiled a little sheepishly. "It's nice to meet you, Beth. Al... Al's told me about you. A lot about you."

"How do you know Al? And how," she swallowed, "how do you know that he is alive, that he'll come back? You said you started with the happy ending. So, what's the 'once upon a time'?"

"I saw him. Just before I le—before I left, I saw him."

Beth sat up a little straighter. "You served?"

Sam never liked to lie, and he was glad that he could give Beth this story without having to resort to that. "Yeah. And Al and I, we're really close. I've put my life in his hands more times than I can count. And I've never known a man so in love with his wife as he is with you. I know the military has declared him Missing in Action, but I saw him. He's alive."

"Then why—"

"He was taken prisoner." She gasped, and he squeezed her hand tightly. "He isn't missing; they just don't know where he is." Sam paused, slight confusion evident on his face. "That doesn't sound right, does it?" he asked. Beth gave him a small shake of her head, and they both laughed a little.

"I can't imagine how awful it's been for you, never getting any news, never getting any answers. That's why I came to you, Beth, why I found you. He begged me to tell you, to find you and tell you that he isn't dead. That he loves you, and that his love for you, and yours for him, is what's keeping him alive over there."

"God, Sam," she breathed something between a chuckle and a sob, "your timing is really good. Kind of amazing, actually."

Sam schooled his face into a vaguely curious expression. "Yeah?"

"There's this guy, Dirk, he's been—we just met a few days ago, and I thought—anyway, it doesn't matter now." She gave Sam an all-out smile. "And you're right. Not knowing was the worst part. Even if they'd told me he was dead, at least I'd have been able to do _something_ —mourn, move on, do what people do, not struggle every day with whether or not to give up. But knowing he's alive, really knowing it... Sam," she put her arms around him as she teared up again. "Oh God, Sam, thank you."

Sam hugged her tightly and pressed his cheek to her hair. "He's alive out there, somewhere," he whispered. "You hold on to that. No matter how long it takes him to get back to you, Beth, you hold on to that. Promise?"

She nodded against his shoulder. "Promise." As she pulled away, she saw that Sam's eyes were brimming as well. She cupped his face in her hands and brushed his tears away with her thumbs. "You promise too, Sam. Your friend is alive out there, somewhere. Promise that you'll hold on to that, too. No matter how long it takes."

Sam took her hands in his and brought them back down to his lap. He looked at them so that she couldn't see his face, and he nodded, silently.

* * *

Al opened his eyes to find himself curled on his side on the floor of the Control Room, one cheek pressed against the cool tile.

"Admiral!"

Al winced. "Uh, Gushie, keep it down. God, my head feels like Maxine took her second-best chainsaw to it." He sat up carefully and wobbled to his feet, one hand braced against the main console.

"Maxine?"

"My fourth wife. She loved her power tools. No, wait, my fifth wife. Gushie, was Maxine my fourth or fifth wife?"

Gushie blinked a few times. "Er. Fourth wife? I don't understand. Is 'Maxine' some kind of code name for Mrs. Calavicci?"

"Beth? No, Beth doesn't have a code name. Neither do the girls. What are you talking about, code names? I don't have a code name, do you? None of the kids have code names, and none of my... wives... had...." Al trailed off, turning his gaze from Gushie to Ziggy.

Gushie shifted from foot to foot, looking both confused and a little frightened. "Admiral, the medics should be here any second, and I phoned Mrs. Calavicci; she's holding for you right now."

"Yeah. Uh, thanks, Gushie. That's great." Al's eyes never left Ziggy's main console.

The doctors checked Al's pupils, asked him to name all the prime numbers backwards from one hundred, to recite his address, to balance on one foot and then the other. He went through their tests as fast as he could, growing more and more impatient.

"Uh, fellas, if you don't see anything hinky, can we call this off for now?"

One of the med techs said, "Admiral, I'd like to get a CT scan as soon as you are available."

"Yeah yeah. I'll get Gushie to call you if I come down with a case of the sniffles."

"Sir, please."

Al opened his mouth, but before he could get a word out, Ziggy interrupted. "I am monitoring all of Admiral Calavicci's brain functions, and I can assure you that he is uninjured. If I should receive any irregular readings, I will immediately contact you, Doctor."

The doctor snorted, but ushered his team out the door.

Al waved at Gushie for the phone. "Hi, honey. No no, I'm fine. Just Gushie overreacting, as usual. No. Yeah, that's good. Sure, put 'em on the phone."

Al quickly put the phone on mute and looked at Gushie, who looked like he wanted to melt into the wall. "Go home, Gushie."

Gushie's face lit up. "Yes, Admiral. Good night, Admiral." He fled the room.

Al put the phone back to his ear. "Hi, sweetheart! No, I can't read you a story tonight, but I'll read you two stories tomorrow night, okay? I love you too, honey. Yes. Okay, put your sister on.... Hey, you finish up your homework? Did you get Mom to help you with that? I know, Saturday, I'll be there. Okay, can you put Mom back on the phone? Yeah. Good night.... Hey. I'm fine. Really. Headache's already gone, but uh, something's up here that's probably gonna keep me late tonight, and I don't want you to worry. Well, we don't know what we're looking at yet. I promise I'll wake you when I get in. Yeah. Okay. G'night." He was about to disconnect when he put the phone back to his ear. "Hey Beth? I love you."

Al turned off the phone and stared at it.

"Ziggy?"

"Yes, Admiral?"

"I remember both timelines."

"Yes, Admiral."

"The headache—"

"Due to your direct link with Doctor Beckett, as the probability that Mrs. Calavicci would not remarry rose, the alternate timeline's temporal interference exponentially increased along your neural pathways."

Al grimaced. "And in English?"

"That was perfectly sound English, Admiral."

"Ziggy, so help me—"

"The new timeline's memories punched you in the head."

Al blinked, then smiled. "You're sounding more like me every day, Zig."

"I sincerely hope not, Admiral."

Al was certain that, if Ziggy had eyes, she would be rolling them. Sighing, he exchanged the phone for the handlink, and idly punched in a few data points, knowing he would find nothing useful. He stared at it anyway, silent for quite some time.

"He went back, Ziggy. He went back and changed it. He changed it, for me. And he couldn't have known what would happen next, could he? I mean, anything could have happened if she was waiting when I came back. We were thinking about moving to Seattle for a while there; hell, we talked about Italy, for God's sake. What would have happened to Sam, then? Would the project even be here?"

"I am unable to determine the probability of such a hypothetical and philosophical situation. The only thing I can state with near certainty is that Doctor Beckett must have known that he was risking the unknowable."

Al shook his head. "Sam." He closed his eyes and drummed his fingers on the console for a bit, and then he looked up, squinting a little. "Ziggy, Sam was in Cokeburg, Pennsylvania on April the 8th, 1953, this afternoon, yeah?"

"Yes."

"And he was in San Diego, California on—I'm gonna take an educated guess, here—April 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, 1969, this evening?"

"The data I collected during your punched-head interval supports your hypothesis."

"Okay, I need you to work your microchip magic for me. Could you look for something, some kind of trace pattern, that draws a line from Cokeburg in '53 to San Diego in '69?"

"Theoretically, I—"

"And then could you scan for the same whatchamacallit leading from '69 San Diego to... where and whenever? Instead of trying to hook me into Sam by locking me into the amusement park ride from hell, we could work the whole thing backwards. We can't find out where he _is_ , but we can find out where he _was_. We know the neural link still works, so if we could just... follow the trail, catch up to where it stops, we could find Sam, right?"

Ziggy was silent for far longer than she had ever been when posed a question. Al fidgeted with the handlink for a bit, and then started pacing.

Just as he was about to resort to kicking the console, Ziggy spoke.

"Admiral."

Al jumped. "What?!"

"I believe the head-punching may have increased your intelligence."

Al ignored the back-handed compliment and started bouncing on his toes. "It'll work?"

"I will require significant recalibrations to my space-time fluctuation indices, and while the Imaging Chamber's biomechanical—"

"Ziggy!"

"And the timeframe will be such that—"

"ZIGGY! I don't care what we'll have to do, or how much it'll cost, or how long it'll take! Is it possible?"

If Al didn't know better, he'd have sworn Ziggy was grinning. "Yes, Admiral, it can be done."

Al threw his hands in the air and whooped. "TOUCHDOWN!" Grinning like a maniac, he grabbed up the cell phone and speed-dialed Gushie. "Get the hell back here! Aw, Christ, we have to call Donna. No, _I'll_ do that. You get back to your office and track down everyone who worked on the project between '90 and '95." He punched the phone off and clapped his hands once, eyes wide and eager.

"Ziggy? We're puttin' the band back together."

"Yes, Admiral."

"And we're gonna find him." He nodded. "We're gonna find him."

* * *

Sam took the stairs from the restaurant down to the wine cellars two at a time. Table Five didn't really need another bottle of wine, but he had to get away from the kitchen for a few minutes to clear his head. This leap was proving far more stressful than he'd originally thought it would be—it was obvious to anyone who met her that Melissa didn't want to spend her life working at Le Petit Espace. Why anyone would choose to spend their lives with the egos involved in running a five-star restaurant was completely beyond him. He'd thought it would be a breeze to convince her to step away from her family's business when he saw how unhappy she was. Unfortunately, blood was proving to be thicker than bordeaux, Sam was no closer to his goal after three weeks, and Melissa was on a downward spiral that was rapidly approaching the point of no return. He was starting to get desperate.

He sat down on the floor, taking advantage of the lower temperature and near silence after escaping the hollering blast furnace of the kitchen. Leaning back against a crate packed with straw and bottles of zinfandel, he closed his eyes and breathed in the cool, cool air. Just another moment or two of peace and quiet, and he'd head back to the kitchen, to the egos, to Melissa. Maybe tonight he'd find the right way to get through to her, get her to see beyond the false and foreshortened horizons her parents had chosen for her before she was born. He shook his head, and the reflection in one of the refrigeration units caught his eye.

Once he'd gotten used to seeing his face on a regular basis, mirrors had lost their dramatic impact. From time to time, another grey hair would draw his attention, or he'd realize that the creases in his forehead were somewhat more pronounced than the last time he'd really noticed, but it had been a quite a while since seeing his own reflection was a novelty. He squinted a little at the glass, but nothing of interest looked back at him today. His face, the crates behind him, the dark woods and glinting bottles in the dim, silent cellar.

He stood up, stretching out his back a little, when he was accosted by lights and sounds. Lights of bright blue and blinding white; sounds of hydraulics and motors and computers. Lights and sounds which were entirely foreign to his quiet little retreat, but not entirely foreign to him. Lights and sounds which were there and gone in an instant. And once they were gone, Sam was once again hit full force with dramatic impact.

"Heya, Sam. Long time, no see."

Grey hair never looked so good.

  



End file.
